'Fairly smooth' Mysteryland may be coming back to Bethel Woods

BETHEL — For police, it was no secret that some of the thousands of people descending on Bethel Woods for this past weekend’s three-day Mysteryland festival would come bearing illegal drugs.

But a festival estimated to bring as many as 18,000 electronic music devotees to Sullivan County ended with less than 20 arrests and a string of endorsements from local officials.

Its success will also determine whether Bethel Woods continues with a tentative three-year deal to host Mysteryland.

“I was in and out of there, and my staff was, and people were polite and they were decent,” Sheriff Mike Schiff said on Tuesday. “Everything went very smoothly, and it was a wonderful event.”

Deputies mainly worked to control traffic, but state police arrested about 15 people found with varying quantities of marijuana and hallucinogenics such as LSD and MDMA, which is more popularly known as ecstasy.

On Friday troopers arrested Evelyn Pierrepont, 23, of Locust Valley after a traffic stop on Perry Road in Bethel. She was charged with felony drug possession and accused of having hash oil, LSD and MDMA. More felony arrests followed on Saturday and Sunday.

On Saturday troopers stopped a car on Route 17B near Perry Road and slapped felony drug charges on five occupants: Bobby Chen, James Ma and Alvin So of Brooklyn; Melanie Kim of Maspeth; and Stephen Tsen of Forest Hills.

One man, Arthur Young of Maryland, was arrested when he allegedly dropped pills containing MDMA at a festival checkpoint. He was also charged with felony drug possession.

State police expected to arrest people, but the total was minimal given the size of the crowd, said Jan Golding, senior investigator with the state police in Liberty. Other than an arrest for disorderly conduct and resisting police, there were no arrests for violence, he said.

“It was a fairly well-behaved crowd,” Golding said. “All and all it was fairly smooth from our perspective.”

Whether Mysteryland returns to Sullivan County will be determined by a post-festival analysis, according to a spokeswoman for Bethel Woods.